Continuing the trend of focusing on the advanced players, each deck has a larger pool of cards to unlock and thus more customization available. Part of the fun of Magic is optimizing your deck and Duels 2013 gives you more opportunity to do that.

Let me know when you can just make a 60 card deck and play it. I bought DotP once. I won't do so again unless that is the case. I don't want 'more opportunity to do that'. I want to DO THAT.

Looking forward to playing the game on my iPod. Like that they took the feedback they got into account. I love the subtle connection between the art of the two preview cards. Would have totally missed it had they not been put together in the article.

What do we think... Does the flavor text on Krenko mean he's going to be printed again in Return to Ravinca Block? Or are they just using 2013 to set up that world more for new players, simply making it fairly obvious that an Azorius hussar is some sort of law and order type?

It seems weird to have a legend from a plane never show up in it's home block, and I can imagine him and the sorcery being fairly different quality cards in different draft environments.

What do we think... Does the flavor text on Krenko mean he's going to be printed again in Return to Ravinca Block? Or are they just using 2013 to set up that world more for new players, simply making it fairly obvious that an Azorius hussar is some sort of law and order type?

It seems weird to have a legend from a plane never show up in it's home block, and I can imagine him and the sorcery being fairly different quality cards in different draft environments.

Perhaps there's a long time in-between Dissension and RtR, and these legends are those whom grow great in the time period in-between. Or they just didn't have room for mono-colour legends for all the gold goodiness. A problem of which I approve.

"Ah, the age-old conundrum. Defenders of a game are too blind to see it's broken, and critics are too idiotic to see that it isn't." - Brian McCormick

Revamping and reimagining core set magic has been a huge key to magic's success in the last few years. Designing new cards for core sets was an excellent decision. I love all the complexity constructed magic has to offer, but I also love that magic can function in a (relatively) much simpler way and still be a great game. More generic fantasy tropes are much more enviting to new players and they are refreshing to magic veterans after diving into a specific block all winter. Redesigning core set cards as more universal fantasy tropes has been key to that success and I think it's great. That's why I think it has been ok to make "new" cards by just simplifying the flavor of existing cards that are functionally exactly the same.

But I always thought it was a delicate business slapping a fresh coat of "Runeclaw" over a perfectly serviceable "Grizzly".

I do think, for example, "Divination" is worthwhile over the servicable "councel of the soratami." It's a more elegant and universal image, easier for a new player to absorb (Even though you do trade away the mystery the original provided in the core set. "Who are the soratami?" you might have wondered, and "Why does everybody want their concel? . . . How deep does this Magic rabbit hole go?") Then there were some "new" old cards that were more fiddly, "Essence Scatter" is a more blue thing to do than "Remove Soul", i guess, but ultimately wasn't remove soul pretty much fine?

But this preview has me totally scratching my head. Now you are going the opposite direction. You've taken a card that was very universal and slapped a proper noun on it. Dragon Fodder is a favorite card of mine. It's name is funny without being too goofy. It hits the sweet spot. It's just the perfect thing to call a pair of goblin tokens. You could switch up the art and flavor text and this card would be welcome in just about any Magic block that didn't mind having goblin tokens around. More relevant to what I was saying: It's more universal. More of a fantasy trope. But now you've got new players asking: "Who is Krenko?"

It is very wasteful to start renaming existing magic cards that are perfectly suited to core sets as they are. At best it seems new for the sake of being new but at worst, (and this is important guys!) you run the risk of creating the impression that you are slapping a fresh coat of paint over perfectly good old cards just in order to sell more cards.

Magic shouldn't have two different cards with the same name that do the exact same thing. You made some good, well thought out, exceptions a few years back in the interest of refreshing and envigorating the brand. It worked out great. But now you should remember the virtues of keeping the core set representative of the greater pool of magic cards. I'm not saying "Krenko's Command" is the end of the world, but It does scare me a little. I would hate for magic to go down a path where we end up with a lot of redundancies. Picture a deck running two dragon fodder and two krenko's command. There's nothing functionally wrong with it but it's simply ugly. It's bad game design. Now picture a deck full of reduncancies like that, full of cards called different things that do the same thing. Worse, how would playing against that deck make a player new to magic feel? How would it make them feel about investing time learning how to play magic? Avoiding redundant cards is one of the things that has kept magic so healthy for so long.

I would think that if they were going to reprint dragonfodder they would have at least named it something a little more generic. Two core sets from now we're going to see a new version of this card called "Goblincall".

You've taken a card that was very universal and slapped a proper noun on it. Dragon Fodder is a favorite card of mine. It's name is funny without being too goofy. It hits the sweet spot. It's just the perfect thing to call a pair of goblin tokens.

Calling a pair of Gobin tokens "dragon fodder" only works if you can feed them to a dragon, and since Exalted is back in M13, Devour wont be. Its not even like the tokens have flying so you can use them to chump block a dragon, either.

Oh and this:

Exact reprints containing the name of new legends are what allows "eight-ofs" in a deck.

That makes no sense to me.
If they spelled the ability out on the card in full then it would not be allowed in a mono-black Commander deck, but because they used a keyword to save space it is allowed?
~ Tim

I love this description. Like the cows are sponges filled with milk. I can see it all Nick Parks claymation-style with the cow's eyes bugging out momentarily as a giant farmer squeezes it like a squeaky dog toy, and milk shoots out of it.

56287226 wrote:

56735468 wrote:

And no judge will ever give you a game loss for playing snow covered lands.

I do think, for example, "Divination" is worthwhile over the servicable "councel of the soratami." It's a more elegant and universal image, easier for a new player to absorb (Even though you do trade away the mystery the original provided in the core set. "Who are the soratami?" you might have wondered, and "Why does everybody want their concel? . . . How deep does this Magic rabbit hole go?")

[...]

But this preview has me totally scratching my head. Now you are going the opposite direction. You've taken a card that was very universal and slapped a proper noun on it. Dragon Fodder is a favorite card of mine. It's name is funny without being too goofy. It hits the sweet spot. It's just the perfect thing to call a pair of goblin tokens. You could switch up the art and flavor text and this card would be welcome in just about any Magic block that didn't mind having goblin tokens around. More relevant to what I was saying: It's more universal. More of a fantasy trope. But now you've got new players asking: "Who is Krenko?"

The difference being that you can find out the second by cracking more packs from the same (in-print, standard-legal) set, whereas the first is a throwback to something less relevant today. Althought it would be cool to see a Counsel of the Soratami with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage art =)

Don't like Krenko bring printed in a core set. I started back when Magic had books to accompany it, during Masques specifically. I liked the Legends for the same reason the people who created them did: I felt that Legends created crossover appeal between Magic and roleplaying games, as do planeswalkers. They created a character for you to identify with. Even better, they allowed you to tell your own stories about the games you played. Even now, as I'm trying to become competitive at levels higher than FNM, I still love playing occasional games with my friends where we dive deep into the flavor of the game and describe our card's actions as we cast them. I feel that printing a Legend in a core set robs Krenko of that opportunity, because he has no story. He has no rivals, no friends, only two flimsy minions, and no defining struggle. He doesn't have much character at all, which makes the Legendary addition pointless and feel wrong, especially since writers in R&D like yourself frequently talk about their general dislike for Legendary, due to it being a downside-only mechanic.

Also, about renaming Dragon Fodder- I don't like the new name, but I don't think you should have kept the old one. Flavorfully, the old name wouldn't have made sense. But the new name means that, when indulging my inner Vorthos, I can't call upon these particular goblins without also obtaining the allegiance of their master, who I won't be putting in any of my decks.

The puns in this article don't work in a British accent; "Duel" is pronounced with two syllables, "DYOO-ul", to rhyme with "Jewel". It was only at the last one that I even figured out what pun Maro was trying to make -.-;;

Then there were some "new" old cards that were more fiddly, "Essence Scatter" is a more blue thing to do than "Remove Soul", i guess, but ultimately wasn't remove soul pretty much fine?

As they said at the time, "Remove Soul" sounds like a black kill spell. It doesn't make sense that it's something you can only do as a spell is being cast.

The difference being that you can find out [who the Soratami are] by cracking more packs from the same (in-print, standard-legal) set, whereas the first is a throwback to something less relevant today. Althought it would be cool to see a Counsel of the Soratami with Tamiyo, the Moon Sage art =)

Counsel of the Soratami was reprinted in Tenth Edition, which was 1997; Champions of Kamigawa was 1994, so I don't think there were many other Soratami references in XED.

Continuing the trend of focusing on the advanced players, each deck has a larger pool of cards to unlock and thus more customization available. Part of the fun of Magic is optimizing your deck and Duels 2013 gives you more opportunity to do that.

Let me know when you can just make a 60 card deck and play it. I bought DotP once. I won't do so again unless that is the case. I don't want 'more opportunity to do that'. I want to DO THAT.

You can do that since the last version of the game, DotP 2012.

WotC doesn't care about flavor. Their forum is the only place where an ORC can kill a troll...

The puns in this article don't work in a British accent; "Duel" is pronounced with two syllables, "DYOO-ul", to rhyme with "Jewel". It was only at the last one that I even figured out what pun Maro was trying to make -.-;;

That makes no sense to me.
If they spelled the ability out on the card in full then it would not be allowed in a mono-black Commander deck, but because they used a keyword to save space it is allowed?
~ Tim

I love this description. Like the cows are sponges filled with milk. I can see it all Nick Parks claymation-style with the cow's eyes bugging out momentarily as a giant farmer squeezes it like a squeaky dog toy, and milk shoots out of it.

56287226 wrote:

56735468 wrote:

And no judge will ever give you a game loss for playing snow covered lands.

Continuing the trend of focusing on the advanced players, each deck has a larger pool of cards to unlock and thus more customization available. Part of the fun of Magic is optimizing your deck and Duels 2013 gives you more opportunity to do that.

Let me know when you can just make a 60 card deck and play it. I bought DotP once. I won't do so again unless that is the case. I don't want 'more opportunity to do that'. I want to DO THAT.

You can do that since the last version of the game, DotP 2012.

Blatant lies. You get to choose the nonland cards for each deck, but only out of a preset pool of 40 or so different cards with no ability to obtain more copies of cards that are singleton. There's no way to even use cards you've unlocked in other decks. So you can't put a copy of Sword of War and Peace in Nissa's deck, for instance, even if you've unlocked it for Gideon's deck.

From Mark Rosewater's Tumblr: the0uroboros asked: How in the same set can we have a hexproof, unsacrificable(not a word) creature AND a land that makes it uncounterable. How does this lead to interactive play? I believe I’m able to play my creature and you have to deal with it is much more interactive than you counter my creature.

MaRo: One of the classic R&D stories happened during a Scars of Mirrodin draft. Erik Lauer was sitting to my right (meaning that he passed to me in the first and third packs). At the end of the draft, Erik was upset because I was in his colors (black-green). He said, "Didn't you see the signals? I went into black-green in pack one." I replied, "Didn't you see my signals? I started drafting infect six drafts ago."

I'm disappointed that DotP still hasn't introduced a mode with full control by the player for making their deck how they want. Yugi has had it since their first VG in 2002. I'm not saying you can't be creative and put time and effort into these other (admittedly interesting) modes; but a massive element of MtG is the deckbuilding process which begins from the intuit of one's personal idea. When players try to transition from DotP to MtG, I just wonder if they ever walk in the store and ask, "so whose deck pools do you have for sale?"

I'm disappointed that DotP still hasn't introduced a mode with full control by the player for making their deck how they want. Yugi has had it since their first VG in 2002. I'm not saying you can't be creative and put time and effort into these other (admittedly interesting) modes; but a massive element of MtG is the deckbuilding process which begins from the intuit of one's personal idea. When players try to transition from DotP to MtG, I just wonder if they ever walk in the store and ask, "so whose deck pools do you have for sale?"

1) if they give full customisation, it will hurt MTGO.2) you can buy the DOTP decks (or at least, decks inspired by them), and you can buy ready made decks off the shelf (Event Decks for example). I wouldnt expect a new player to start from scratch (I didnt: I started with 3 copies of the free 9th ed Starter set, and then later with some Xth ed and Shadowmoor precons. After playing with the prebuilt decks I broke them up and mashed them back together again to make my own decks. It was months before I built a deck 100% from scratch)

That makes no sense to me.
If they spelled the ability out on the card in full then it would not be allowed in a mono-black Commander deck, but because they used a keyword to save space it is allowed?
~ Tim

I love this description. Like the cows are sponges filled with milk. I can see it all Nick Parks claymation-style with the cow's eyes bugging out momentarily as a giant farmer squeezes it like a squeaky dog toy, and milk shoots out of it.

56287226 wrote:

56735468 wrote:

And no judge will ever give you a game loss for playing snow covered lands.

Continuing the trend of focusing on the advanced players, each deck has a larger pool of cards to unlock and thus more customization available. Part of the fun of Magic is optimizing your deck and Duels 2013 gives you more opportunity to do that.

Let me know when you can just make a 60 card deck and play it. I bought DotP once. I won't do so again unless that is the case. I don't want 'more opportunity to do that'. I want to DO THAT.

You can do that since the last version of the game, DotP 2012.

Blatant lies. You get to choose the nonland cards for each deck, but only out of a preset pool of 40 or so different cards with no ability to obtain more copies of cards that are singleton. There's no way to even use cards you've unlocked in other decks. So you can't put a copy of Sword of War and Peace in Nissa's deck, for instance, even if you've unlocked it for Gideon's deck.

Hey friend, calm down and read his post again. He was asking for unlocking cards for the decks but keep them with 60 cards. In DotP you can't do it, but in DotP 2012 you can. If you want to play a game with any card, go play MTGO. Full deck customization will never happen in the DotP franchise because this would put the game on MTGO territory, but DotP only costs $10.

WotC doesn't care about flavor. Their forum is the only place where an ORC can kill a troll...

Continuing the trend of focusing on the advanced players, each deck has a larger pool of cards to unlock and thus more customization available. Part of the fun of Magic is optimizing your deck and Duels 2013 gives you more opportunity to do that.

Let me know when you can just make a 60 card deck and play it. I bought DotP once. I won't do so again unless that is the case. I don't want 'more opportunity to do that'. I want to DO THAT.

You can do that since the last version of the game, DotP 2012.

Blatant lies. You get to choose the nonland cards for each deck, but only out of a preset pool of 40 or so different cards with no ability to obtain more copies of cards that are singleton. There's no way to even use cards you've unlocked in other decks. So you can't put a copy of Sword of War and Peace in Nissa's deck, for instance, even if you've unlocked it for Gideon's deck.

Hey friend, calm down and read his post again. He was asking for unlocking cards for the decks but keep them with 60 cards. In DotP you can't do it, but in DotP 2012 you can. If you want to play a game with any card, go play MTGO. Full deck customization will never happen in the DotP franchise because this would put the game on MTGO territory, but DotP only costs $10.

No. I was asking for full customization, 100% build-your-own-deck. Not 60 and I can swap 20 in or out with those 20 limited to a carefully selected few. I want to draw the cards I selected for the deck. I don't want to go into a game hoping I don't draw the crap selected for me because I'm at the customization limit.

Continuing the trend of focusing on the advanced players, each deck has a larger pool of cards to unlock and thus more customization available. Part of the fun of Magic is optimizing your deck and Duels 2013 gives you more opportunity to do that.

Let me know when you can just make a 60 card deck and play it. I bought DotP once. I won't do so again unless that is the case. I don't want 'more opportunity to do that'. I want to DO THAT.

You can do that since the last version of the game, DotP 2012.

Blatant lies. You get to choose the nonland cards for each deck, but only out of a preset pool of 40 or so different cards with no ability to obtain more copies of cards that are singleton. There's no way to even use cards you've unlocked in other decks. So you can't put a copy of Sword of War and Peace in Nissa's deck, for instance, even if you've unlocked it for Gideon's deck.

Hey friend, calm down and read his post again. He was asking for unlocking cards for the decks but keep them with 60 cards. In DotP you can't do it, but in DotP 2012 you can. If you want to play a game with any card, go play MTGO. Full deck customization will never happen in the DotP franchise because this would put the game on MTGO territory, but DotP only costs $10.

No. I was asking for full customization, 100% build-your-own-deck. Not 60 and I can swap 20 in or out with those 20 limited to a carefully selected few. I want to draw the cards I selected for the deck. I don't want to go into a game hoping I don't draw the crap selected for me because I'm at the customization limit.

He was on the right path. You can't build your own deck.

I'm afraid to say that, but WotC won't give you this for $10. MTGO is your best option.

WotC doesn't care about flavor. Their forum is the only place where an ORC can kill a troll...

For those who might not have done the math, the four planes featured in Magic 2013 are Ravnica and Innistrad as MaRo mentionned (the two planes of 2012-2013 Standard, nothing surprising here), Dominaria (still the core plane of the magic multiverse, even though it hasn't been visited much lately) and Alara (for a couple reasons : it is the home of the returning mechanic of the year, Exalted, and the last appearance of Nicol Bolas who is the greatest "face" of the set. I would have thought that it would also help set up multicolor cards for the set, but it doesn't seem there are that many, if any, besides Bolas himself).

I've seen independent confirmation that Alara is indeed one of the returning planes, so since we've also seen (or had spoiled) the other three--Shandalar, Ravnica and Innistrad--I think Dominaria's not being featured.

"Proc" stands for "Programmed Random OCcurance". It does not even vaguely apply to anything Magic cards do. Don't use it.